Cage fighting, arses and frickin’ lasers: Killjoys comes to SyFy UK

Tonight sees Canadian sci-fi action series Killjoys blasting its way onto British screens, courtesy of SyFy.

Cut from a similar cloth to Firefly, Killjoys follows the exploits of a team of bounty hunters who hop between a series of habitable moons as they chase down marks in a system known as ‘the Quad’, which is something of a political powder keg.

Unlike the densely plotted Battlestar Galactica with its chin-stroking allegories, Killjoys is unashamed sci-fi fun with an emphasis on quirky one-liners, fisticuffs and pew-pew lasers. For British viewers, there’s giggles to be had hearing lead character Dutch (played by Hannah John-Kamen of Misfits and Black Mirror fame) saying words like ‘arse’ and having her American partners in crime John (Aaron Ashmore) and D’avin (Luke Macfarlane) pronounce it ‘ass’.

There’s also some possibly unintentional laughs to be had at the expense of the Killyjoys employers – the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition – which shares its abbreviated name with a certain UK-based car insurer. It’s a shame that for the most part, the characters refer to it as ‘the Rac’ instead of its initialised form, which could have made for a tenuous Norweb Federation in-joke.

Trans-Atlantic lols aside, there’s a healthy dash of intrigue amid the gunfire and roundhouse kicks that should keep the show ticking over for its first ten episodes. A second season’s already in the works – filming got underway in Toronto last December – suggesting that there’s plenty of shocks and suprises in store for the Killjoys.